Declining Labor Force Participation Leads to Sharp Drop in Unemployment

By Dean Baker


The employment rate for women is down 0.7 percentage points from its year-ago level.

The Labor Department reported a decline of 315,000 people in the labor market in October. This was the main factor driving a drop of 0.4 percentage points in the unemployment rate to 8.6 percent. The establishment survey showed a weaker-than-expected 120,000 job gain for the month; although this bad news was largely offset by upward revisions of 72,000 to the job growth numbers for the prior two months.